Rationale, Issues, and Conditions for Sustaining the Abolition of School Fees • 9
the primary cycle. Of these, at least half fail to master the expected basic skills. In this context, those who do not enter school, drop out prior to completing the primary cycle, or do not acquire basic skills are increasingly children who—from an economic and social point of view—are the most vulnerable.11 They are predominantly from poor rural families, the majority are girls, many are disabled, and an increasing number are orphans because of the impact of civil strife and HIV/AIDS (see below). For these children, the indirect and direct cost of education to families is often the single most important factor excluding them from school. Furthermore, these are children from families that do not have a strong political voice; they may not be heard when the demand for greater allocation of resources for post-primary education increases (because of the progress toward universal primary education) from those already enrolled. Therefore, to maintain the present growth momentum, it is necessary to have determined political leadership, resulting in targeted assistance to address both demand and supply factors hampering access and school retention for these children. There is a powerful ethical as well as development case for governments to provide the leadership required to ensure that no child is excluded from school because of inability to pay. With respect to access, despite the encouraging increase in admission experienced in most of the region’s countries in recent years, serious challenges remain, especially as children not yet enrolled are from marginalized groups, more difficult and costly to reach than children already at school. Within countries, access differs markedly according to family income, geographic location, and gender, in that order of importance, and examples abound. •
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A study covering 12 Francophone countries shows that, on average, disparity in access between children from families in the first and fifth income quintiles is three to four times greater than disparity based on gender. Similarly, the disparity between urban and rural children is two to three times greater than by gender (Mingat 2003a). The combination of being poor, rural, and female means that girls account for about two-thirds of those who do not enter school. In some poor, rural areas no more than 10–15 percent of girls are enrolled. Data from Mozambique’s case study show that, in 2004, the GER for the two upper grades of primary education (grades 6 and 7) ranged from 50 percent for the poorest 20 percent of the families to 87 percent for the richest 20 percent. Similarly, data from Malawi’s case show that, in 1990, the net enrollment ratio was only 33 percent for children from the poorest quintile as compared to 75 percent for the richest.